Howard Phelps Putnam was born in 1894 in Allston, Massachusetts, then a distinctly suburban and semi-rural part of Boston, and died on July 3, 1948, in Jamaica Plain. He belonged to the generation of American writers formed between the confident cultural inheritance of the nineteenth century and the disillusioning modernity of the First World War. His reputation never became as large as those of several Yale contempo…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Howard Phelps Putnam
Poet B
Daniel Webster Davis
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 58%
Poems 80%
Blended 68%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the flickering twilight of America's greatest national trial, on March 25, 1862, Daniel Webster Davis entered the world in bondage. Born in either Caroline or Hanover County, Virginia, to enslaved parents—Randall or John Davis and Charlotte Ann Christian Davis—he drew his first breath amid the chaos of the Civil War, a conflict that would soon shatter the chains binding his family. His father died early, leaving h…
In time
Howard Phelps Putnam
Daniel Webster Davis
1862
1948
They overlapped for 20 years (1894–1913).
When Howard Phelps Putnam was born, Daniel Webster Davis was about 32.
Howard Phelps Putnam was about 19 when Daniel Webster Davis died.
On the map
About 719 km separate Boston, Massachusetts, USA from Caroline County, Virginia, USA. Shared ground: United States.
Howard Phelps Putnam
Daniel Webster Davis
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
Howard Phelps Putnam: allston, massachusetts, jamaica plain, trinc, the five seasons, the earthly comedy, harvard, massachusetts, skull and bones, stephen vincent benét. Daniel Webster Davis: caroline county virginia, richmond virginia, charlotte ann christian davis, emancipation, idle moments, weh down souf, garrison lyceum, virginia teachers' reading circle.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
1895
The X-Ray Discovery
Howard Phelps Putnam
Daniel Webster Davis
Emotional landscapes
Howard Phelps Putnam: Irony, Longing, Fear. Daniel Webster Davis: Spirituality, Peace, Tenderness.